Videos

SharkMan (aka Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy)

Back when we were starting out, we’d write songs about anything and everything – regardless to how relatable the subject matter was. That’s how we ended up with a song about a B-movie that hardly anyone has seen.

To counteract the fact that the vast majority of the world has never been exposed to SharkMan, we organised a little screening of the movie and filmed a video for it with our guests.

Some notes…

Only Dylan, Simon and our friends Richard Bolland and Tim Fish are voices in the actual song. The rest of the singers in the video aren’t the actual singers in the track.

We have subsequently been in touch with the cast and crew about the video. The director Michael Oblowitz just had this to say: “Ons is al bore seuns!!!!!”. We’re not entirely too sure what he means by this.

The full story:

In 2005, film history was made when Ken Badish and Boaz Davidson teamed forces to add yet another film to their much loved ‘Man’ series, which consists of hits such as PredatorMan (aka Alien Lockdown), MorphMan (aka Larva), MosquitoMan (aka Mansquito) and SnakeMan (aka The Snake King). There is also SkeletonMan, and although it involved Boaz, it sadly lacked the subtle touches of Ken. There is obviously also Batman, Spiderman, Superman and a host of other ‘Man’ films, but do not be fooled by their misleading titles, they do not fall part of the official ‘Man’ series.

On the 18th June 2005, Ken and Boaz brought the world SharkMan (aka Hammerhead).

“When he began fusing human and shark DNA, his colleagues laughed at him. Now his creation is taking his revenge, and they aren’t laughing anymore.”

In terms of plot, SharkMan probably wins first prize in the ‘Man’ series. To be fair, it’s competing with SnakeMan – who is actually not a man and rather just a big snake – and SkeletonMan – who whilst being a horse riding skeleton, doesn’t find himself in anything that even vaguely resembles a plot.

SharkMan tells the story of scientist who splices his dying son’s genes with that of a shark, in order to cure the son’s cancer. Why, you might ask? Well, apparently there are no records of sharks ever getting sick, and no-one even knows how long sharks can live for, so that is more than enough reason to believe that sharks can in fact live forever.

You’ll be relieved to know that the son’s cancer completely disappears, but for better or for worse, this is round about the same time that the son’s fin appears.

Leaving plot aside for a bit, one has to marvel at the film’s innovative editing style. Far before it’s time, SharkMan uses what can be best described as ‘prophetic editing’. To the untrained film scholar, you could easily discard these moments as mistakes, but don’t be so foolish as to assume that a film with such a rich story, would fault in the editing department.

On more than one occasion, you will see a shot which incorporates something which has yet to happen. For example, when Tom Reed (the film’s hero and head of IT) leads his friends to the top of a roof in order to escape certain death, you are treated to an establishing shot of their building which has a long rope hanging down from it. This is foreshadowing, as seconds later Tom Reed suggests that his friend’s use their clothes to create a rope, which he then hangs off the building, thus becoming the rope you previously saw. Yes – if your head is hurting right now, that is because the concept of ‘prophetic editing’ does tend to blow people’s mind.

Another good example of this is when a shot of the enemy’s boat is seen with Tom Reed and crew crouching down at the back of it. This shot takes place before Tom Reed and crew decide to swim out to it.

To balance the ‘prophetic editing’, the film makes use of ‘present flashbacks’ in their make-up department. An example of this revolutionary cosmetic approach would be when you can quite clearly see both of Bernie’s legs, even though he lost one of them in the scene before.

For a long period of time, The Brothers Streep have feared that the medium of text, or spoken word, might not be sufficient enough to describe the sheer genius of SharkMan. This is why, we wrote this song… hope you enjoy…

Special thanks to all the people involved in creating SharkMan – we use clips from the movie in the spirit of goodwill – we cannot claim them to be our own, although we’d love to be able to. Further thanks to The Sharkmen (Richard Bolland, Tim ‘Fish’ Hodgson, Steven Baulk, Daniel Neville, Jon Shaban, Kevin ‘Rope’ van Kraayenburg and Alison Mellon) and The Hammerheadmen (Tim Smith, Hugh Lashbrooke, Jess Mey, Emma Muller, Tim ‘Fish’ Hodgson, Richard Graham, Michael Ouwerkerk and Richard Bolland).